Monthly Archives: February 2017

There are many things one might consider vital to the success of agriculture in Britain’s North American colonies, and indeed throughout the New World. Plows and scythes, learning about new crops, introducing pigs and cows–so many possibilities. But the introduction that would have the greatest impact on the future success of agriculture in the colonies–and up to the present time–was not even brought along because it would help agriculture.

The honey bee was brought to Jamestown in 1622 because colonists wanted honey. The discovery of pollination was still two centuries in the future when bees landed in the New World. But just because colonists had no idea what the bees were doing didn’t keep the bees from doing it. All the fruit trees and vegetables and other crops brought with settlers were made possible by the introduction of bees. (Corn/maize had been a blessing at the outset, and kept settlers from starving, because corn is wind pollinated, so bees weren’t necessary.)

The bees did more than just make introduced crops viable, however. Unlike some other types of bees, the European honey bee does not specialize. It likes any flowers, whether familiar or new. They loved their new home and, unlike the earlier human settlers, found plenty to eat. They spread rapidly, always staying well ahead of westward human migration, supplying honey to even the earliest pioneers. Native Americans, who called them “English flies,” began to associate honey bees with the spread of European settlement.

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